Pages

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Pervert in Nanaimo

This was not the post I intended to write tonight, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Throughout the last school year, particularily during the Spring semester at VIU (Vancouver Island University AKA formerly Malaspina College/University) a perverted male exposed himself to many female students on and around the campus. He was never caught.

This evening, I receive an email from my mom stating that a semi-nude male (naked from the waist down) was spotted at Westwood Lake, according to the news. This gets me curious as she did not know when this sighting occurred and also due to the fact that I was at Westwood for my workouts both yesterday and today. So I did a google search (yes google and not Bing lol) and came up with this article.

It turns out that the male was spotted yesterday and attacked some 23 year old girl. I was there yesterday. Pretty scary, though when I was there the park was packed with people both walking and running. Some of the trails are pretty secluded, so I could see a man hiding in the bushes. At times I have heard rustling in the bushes and always figure it is a deer, a bird or rabbit or something. Only once have I run into a bear on those trails and that was on the trail connecting to Morrell Sanctuary. Unfortunately the article doesn't say when the man was seen, but it definitely has opened my eyes.

I like to think I am a harder target than most girls around the trail. I am using moving faster than they are so really the only thing he could do would be expose himself to me. I don't think he would be able to come up from behind and tap me on the shoulder. I have noticed many girls jogging around the lake, with earphones and Ipods with the music level blaring. So much so, they don't hear me come from behind. And some people are so into their conversations that they don't even hear me say multiple times "coming through from behind." While I don't plan to limit my running at Westwood due to this "freak" I do plan to watch my back more and be aware of what is going on around me.